The Wedding Day: Yoko Ono & John Lennon

The Wedding Day: Yoko Ono And John Lennon

WHAT HAPPENED: Having met and fallen in love in November 1966 (while John was still married to his first wife Cynthia), the couple had to wait until John's divorce came through before they could be married.

While their nationalities meant delays with holding ceremonies in their first two choices (on board a cross-channel ferry to France and in Paris) the couple were eventually advised to try Gibraltar where, as a British citizen, Lennon could wed immediately. The lead-up to the wedding was recorded in Lennon's song "The Ballad of John and Yoko". THE DRESS: Never one to be conventional, Yoko wore a white miniskirt and top, floppy hat, knee socks and plimsolls. The groom also wore white. THE GUESTS: They were married in a 10-minute ceremony performed by registrar Cecil Wheeler and attended by the band's photographer David Nutter, who eventually lost the negatives to the big day after he lent them to someone hired by Lennon to put together a book. THE PARTY: Well, not a party exactly. After the ceremony, John and Yoko travelled to Amsterdam and holed themselves up in the presidential suite of the Hilton hotel. They invited the world's media to witness their "bed-in for peace", which began on the 25th of May and lasted seven days. HAPPILY EVER AFTER? Their relationship is often blamed for the Beatles splitting up in 1970 after Lennon left the band to spend more time with his new wife. Despite reports of mistresses and brief splits, the couple went on to have a son, Sean, in 1975, before John was shot and killed outside their New York home in 1980. Yoko has never remarried.